Saint Catherine of Siena
A Brief Background
Catherine of Siena was born in 1347 to a prosperous wool-dyer. She was the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children (!) and her family home is still preserved to this day.
She didn’t read or write until her mid-twenties, so much of what she learned about God was through her conversations with others or through prayer. She dictated her letters and her major work is called The Dialogue. She died at age thirty-three.1
A Life of Service
Catherine understood how a life of love should look, and spoke of God’s call to love others, saying,
I have made you my ministers, setting you in different positions and in different ranks to exercise the virtue of charity…All I want is love…if you are bound by this love you will do everything you can to be of service wherever you are.2
Catherine’s entire life was directed towards service—she served the sick in a time of plague, brought in many new converts, and served as an “ambassador”, negotiating peace in a time of chaos.3
Love of Neighbour
Once when I was a kid, my sister learned about Catherine of Siena in school and told me a story that still makes me nauseous to this day—she once drank the pus of a woman who was sick to avoid looking down on her in disgust. I don’t know how true this story is because I couldn’t even stomach looking it up, (please feel free to do so if you can stomach it) but one thing that I can appreciate from this story is the fact that she was always serving others, even the poorest and the sickest and even when she felt revolted.
In prayer, Catherine of Siena heard God say,
“This is why I have put you among your neighbours: so that you can…love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for me”4
Preparing Our Hearts
How can Catherine’s example of love and service help us in our own service to our neighbours?